Writing and Reading Around the World

under the wide, dusty streets with their scavengingpacks of dogs,beneath the blocks of grey, communist-era buildings,behind the neon red Cyrillic signs and KFC ads is a palace for the people

below the unsmiling uniforms with their hugehats and intimidating willingness to corruption,the nine-inch stilettos and nineties hair,the calloused, cigarette-pinching fingers,the headscarves bent over floral print dresses is this underground crowd

a smart suit who, seeing me lost in Cyrillic, offersto help,a guitar ascending an endless escalator,a pearl necklace poised beneath the bas-relief of a long-dead dignitary,a toss of pink hair lingering under a marble arch,and, pacing the platform, a pair of ballerinas just like mine